Lair of Dreams picks up a short time after The Diviners end. Evie is know known as the Sweetheart Seer and has her own radio show. Sam and Jericho are doing everything they can to keep the museum open while dealing with their own Diviner issues. Henry finds out there is at least one other Dream walker out there. Theta worries her nightmares from the past may burn her future.

Lair of Dreams was somehow even better then The Diviners. One or two new characters are introduced and fit right in with the already existing ones. I really didn't care for Evie's character for most of this book. Towards the end, you see a glimpse of the old Evie and you get why she acts the way she does for most of the beginning. I still didn't care much for her thoughtlessness, but at least there is a explanation. I'm glad she wasn't the main focus in this title. There wasn't really a main character in Lair of Dreams and I absolutely loved that. Each character has a equal amount of time. This allows each character the time they really needed to grow. The writing and the story are absolutely superb. I liked the ghost story a lot more then Naughty John. I really, really hope it doesn't take another three years for the next Diviners title.

**Thank you Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for providing this in exchange for an honest review**

I'm late with this, but here's my April wrap up. This month I read seven books! First I completed Garbriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, which I really enjoyed. Marquez's prose is absolutely gorgeous and I loved the atmosphere that he imbued this novel with.

After that I read Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which was unlike anything I have read thus far. Really interesting and easy to engage with. I really enjoyed the use of short, snapshot scenes and time travel.

The third book I read was Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I absolutely loved experiencing a small chunk of African culture through this novel and intend to continue reading the remainer of Achebe's African Trilogy and looking in to his other works.

I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed my fourth book this month: Siddhartha by Hermann Hess. I anticipated struggling to get through this work, but I found it very easy to read and engaging as a piece of philosophy. Though I appreciated the narrative elements of this novel, I read it primarily as a work of philosophy.

The fifth book I read this month was Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Though I enjoyed the prose of this piece and appreciated the focus on depression, I couldn't help but feel a barrier between myself and the main characters of the novel, who is also the narrator and was, therefore, inseparable from my experience of the narrative.

I wasn't intending to read James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, but I found myself away from home and without internet for a few days and needed something to read after I finished The Bell Jar. I absolutely loved this novel. So concise, concrete, and visceral. An absolute pleasure to read.

I actually completed Cormac McCarthy'sNo Country for Old Men, the last book on my April TBR early in May, but I decided to include it here. I really did love elements of the writing in this novel, but overall I found it hard to engage with. For a high action novel, it felt anticlimactic and stilted.

Overall, I'd say that I had a very successful reading month this April. I hope to be equally successful this month.

They called the healer Snake, and she bore the name proudly, for the medicine she distilled from the venom of the viper she carried with her was a potent cure; and the soothing power of her other companion, the alien dreamsnake, banished fear. But the primitive ignorance of those she served killed her dreamsnake and wrecked her career - for dreamsnakes were dreadfully rare, and Center would not grant her another. Snake's only hope was to find a new dreamsnake - and on her quest, she was pursued by two implacable followers, one driven by love, one by fear and need.

I enjoyed this short little tale of a healer trying to find her place in the world, making mistakes as we all do and struggling to find a way out of a bad situation. Finding companionship, love and an adopted daughter. A strong female main character, solving problems competently yet accepting help when it is offered. A book which passes the Bechdel test with flying colours [there is more than one female character and they talk to each other about something besides men].

My only complaint was that it was too short—there were several interesting items which tickled my curiosity and made me wish that there was a sequel or that the original was a bit thicker, with more detail. For example, how did Earth get to this post-apocalyptic state? Who are the aliens who created the domes and brought the strange plants and dreamsnakes to Earth? Have they stuck around or who exactly is in the intact city dome?

In a world where there are still so many books in which the female characters are stiff as cardboard or stereotypical caricatures , this book from the 1970s really shines as a book where I felt real affection for Snake. She is a realistic woman, with emotions and dilemmas that I can relate to. I must read more of McIntyre’s work.

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything—instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele’s behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore’s secrets extend far beyond its walls. Rendered with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.

This is one of the most charming books that I have read in a long time. It is a love story to books, bookstores, libraries, museums and the internet. There are wonderful allusions to all kinds of geeky things, from Star Trek to Batman. The author has a real way with words, being able to describe things with one sentence, yet setting the scene perfectly, as when he describes an older lady's home as being that of a bibliophile hobbit. I also loved his description of the situation as Scientology aimed at elderly scholars!

Sloan obviously loves information in all of its forms and his love shines through in his writing. I hope there are many more novels coming from this author. And I hope that someday his Accession Table contraption for museums will be available for use! I'll willingly sign up for training!

Important: Our sites use cookies.
We use the information stored using cookies and similar technologies for advertising and statistics purposes.
Stored data allow us to tailor the websites to individual user's interests.
Cookies may be also used by third parties cooperating with BookLikes, like advertisers, research companies and providers of multimedia applications.
You can choose how cookies are handled by your device via your browser settings.
If you choose not to receive cookies at any time, BookLikes will not function properly and certain services will not be provided.
For more information, please go to our Privacy Policy.